


A Matter of Trust

by Greenleaf66



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, some bad language.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:21:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9898982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenleaf66/pseuds/Greenleaf66
Summary: In which a certain Devil finds that not everything can easily be swept away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for MasterBruin, who stimulated a few ideas with his comments on "Consequences" (thanks, MB, hope you like the results). Skipping over "Candy Morningstar" (wrote about her in another story).

Lucifer really needed to see Maze, which was the only reason he found himself walking up the steps to the apartment she shared with Chloe. It was 4:00 in the afternoon and he knew the detective would still be at the precinct finishing off whatever paperwork was left from the case she was working on.

He took the chance that Maze would be there (hopefully alone), hesitating for only a minute before he knocked.

Maze had picked Trixie up from school after Chloe phoned to say she’d be late, and had decided to kill time before dinner, making cookies with the kid until her mum got home and Maze could escape for some much-needed evening entertainment. No current bounties, plenty of money in the bank and a few days off until the next rotten bit of garbage she hunted would turn up, they always did. She could spare a couple of hours with the little one.

Trixie was giggling as they got out the ingredients. Maze had long ago decided that part-time domesticity wasn’t really so bad. The kid was actually fun sometimes, especially when they got into food fights making her favourite chocolate chip with oatmeal cookies, big chunky ones with lots of gloppy, messy ingredients that inevitably led to some kitchen fun (but only when Chloe was not home, they always made sure to clean up before she arrived, it was their secret).

The knock at the door caught them unaware, blobs of buttery oatmeal poised in one hand of each, ready for throwing.

Trixie ran for the door yelling “I’ll get it!!” as Maze chased after her.

And there he was, looking suitably appalled at the imminent possibility of blobs of sticky goo being smeared over his Armani suit, fully expecting the onslaught of the spawn (and he had to admit, he had missed the little schemer).

But Trixie took a step back and glowered at him, her face so much like her mother’s, a frown wrinkling her little forehead.

“You go away!” she screamed at a very surprised Lucifer.

And then she kicked him. Hard. 

Without Chloe around it didn’t hurt all that much, at least not physically, but he felt a strange little inner twist at her ‘greeting’…..

“You don’t care about us! You left us! You’re not nice, you’re MEAN! You made my mummy cry and I don’t like you anymore!” She hollered at him before turning and running up the stairs to her room and slamming the door.

Maze was glaring at him.

“Why did you have to come over here? Don’t you have any sense? What if SHE had been here? What then?”

“Well, if you would deign to answer your mobile, I wouldn’t have had to come over,” Lucifer spat. “Something’s come up and I need your help--”

Maze cut him off, “I turned my phone off when I saw the messages. I’m not at your beck and call anymore, remember?”

“But, Maze, this is bloody important--”

“Oh fuck, Lucifer, it’s always something important – like everything with you. Everyone is just supposed to drop whatever they’re doing and run to your aid. Well, you may have made ME for that, but things are different now we’re topside. You released me, or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten…..”

“You don’t bother to be in touch for three months after what we did for you?” with a dark emphasis that was a near growl. “What the fuck is that about?”

“I had to go…..Chloe was put here by my Father. You KNEW that and you never told me! She doesn’t really care for me. None of it was real. I almost gave in to it, to Him…..I can’t do that, I just can’t…..”

“Well, you know what?” Maze looked at him. “You’re such a fool, Lucifer, you can’t even see the truth--”

“What the Hell is that supposed to mean?” He fixed her with a look that demanded an answer.

Maze smiled, a nasty twisted demon smile. “I guess you’ll have to figure that out all on your own, won’t you – whatever it is that has your shorts in an uproar, I’m not helping you with it! If it’s so ‘bloody important’, then you can fix your own mess this time. From now on. Because I’m DONE.

“Just go. Get the Hell out of here before she gets home. I have to live with her and I’m not doing THIS” she waved at him dismissively “I have a few days off and I’m going to enjoy them. Holding Chloe’s hand while she cries over you some more is not my idea of fun by a long shot!

“Mind you, what I would really enjoy is kicking your ass right about now, that would make me feel REAL good…….” She licked her lower lip sensuously and eyed him with frank defiance. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t beat you to a pulp with the kid here, but you’d better go, in case I change my mind.”

Lucifer’s eyes were red, but Maze just sneered at him. He turned on his heel and left without another word.

It was beginning to dawn on him that his triumphant return might not be so well-received after all.

Maze sighed when the door closed behind him. She looked up the stairs and squared her shoulders. It was time to go up and comfort the spawn. A little smile played on her lips, thinking of Trixie kicking the Devil. “Kid’s got a lot of spunk,” she thought to herself and smiled with pride as she took the steps up two at a time.

###

Chloe sat in Olivia’s office, not liking what she was hearing, not one bit. Damn it. Five murders so far and with homicide stretched so thin it was going to be a nasty chore solving them. Not that it wasn’t always.

“It’s the only link we have between the victims – they were all card members at Lux. Chances are they knew each other. Give your consultant a call and maybe he can shed some light on it.”

Chloe was squirming in her chair. She did not want to see Lucifer. Couldn’t see him. He had been back for three weeks and had not even tried to call her and she knew whatever potential ‘thing’ was happening between them was over. 

“I’ll send Dan,” she said, “We’ll be able to tell when they were in the club from them swiping the key cards, we know it has to be longer than three months ago--” (Three months, she thought sadly, he had been gone for three months, no calls, no messages…..just nothing. It burned still.) “There’s a security camera over the entrance – if we know what days to look for, we can compare it to the footage--”

###

Dan sighed as he reached for the almost-cold coffee. Five bodies in a week, one for each day so far……..

Ella was working overtime with the whole forensics team. All but the first vic had no mobile devices or any identification. But they all had a key card for Lux.

###

Lucifer didn’t like the thought of working with the Douche, but it was the only way. 

Dan had positively bristled at the thought, but swallowed his objections. They already had five bodies, and if Lucifer could shed some light on any of it before a sixth popped up, it was worth a shot.

The Devil had actually been more than willing to help, no one, after all, wanted to own a club where the patrons were being murdered. It wasn’t good for business.

They sat in Lucifer’s office on the main floor of Lux, going over what footage existed, checking the dates when each member had last been in the club, copying the relevant data and video to an external. Dan and Chloe would go through the tedious hours of footage back at the station and Dan would contact Lucifer if they needed anything else from him.

It seemed to Lucifer this was the best he could do for the moment. He had been watching Dan carefully. As they finished making the appropriate copies for the LAPD, he said, rather tentatively, “Detective Espinoza, may I ask you a personal question?”

Dan looked at him with a quirked eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess so, but if this is about Chloe…”

“Not directly, but yes, I suppose it is…..Would you tell me what it was that drove you two apart?”

Dan sighed, silent for a moment, before quietly saying “It was a matter of trust, Lucifer. I – did something, something really bad, something I never should have done” (and I’ll regret it to the end of my days, he thought) “…..I lied to Chloe.”

“Why, Dan, would you do that?”

“You know Chloe was investigating Malcolm Graham…….She knew he was dirty, she just knew, but she could never get enough evidence for a departmental investigation…. Thing is, I knew too……I was following up my own leads……I figured if I found anything, then she and I could bring it to Olivia together, once we had some proof….So I never told her because we didn’t have anything concrete to go on, only hints and suspicions – you don’t go after a cop who’s liked by other cops unless you are damned sure you have the proof--”

“But you did eventually find the evidence, didn’t you?”

“That was because of you, Lucifer……that morning, when I turned myself in, that’s when I told her……”

“And how did she react?” Lucifer was genuinely curious.

“She punched me in the face and screamed at me. She’s got a pretty wicked right hook …….kick-boxing at the academy, she took to that like a duck to water……

“I apologized but she told me there were no do-overs on this one…….” His voice trailed away sadly.

“But you were trying to protect her, weren’t you?”

“I thought so at the time, I really did………but what I did meant that all the other cops thought she was a rat. No one wanted to work with her, no one would work with her. She took a lot of heat at the station because of it. There were times it got pretty ugly-- 

“I felt so guilty, I started working longer and longer hours just so I wouldn’t have to be around her--”

“But I thought you loved her, Dan--”

“I did! I do, at least part of me always will,” he said softly. “Of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, that’s the one thing I’d take back….

“But we don’t get any do-overs.”

Lucifer went silent at that. Dan thought for a moment before continuing.

“She was my wife. I should have trusted her. I’ve always known her instincts were good. I knew if she kept pushing, she’d crack it eventually. Now that I think about it (and I’ve thought about it a lot), I should have told her everything, that we’d work together in secret until we had what we needed.

“Instead, I let her take the heat from the guys – they all thought Malcolm was some damned fucking hero,” he said bitterly. 

“She was my wife, Lucifer, and I let her down. I should have stood by her side. I tried to convince her to drop it, I didn’t want anything to happen to her – Malcolm knew she was sniffing around Palmetto…..I was afraid if she didn’t drop it, he’d do something to her…..”

“So, again, you were trying to protect her,” Lucifer observed.

“Yeah,” he replied, resignation in his voice. “But I didn’t trust her, and she got hurt. I let her think she was crazy. I let her take the heat while I played along……It was the worst thing I could have done to her, all of it because I just didn’t trust her enough to tell her the damned truth….

“Until that morning when Malcolm planted the gun in your club and everyone thought you’d killed that goddamned street preacher. Chloe was furious. She never believed you had anything to do with it. … I knew you didn’t either, because I’m the stupid ass that stole that gun for Malcolm……After she punched me, she left to go find YOU. She said you thought she had abandoned you, she told me that I better make it right or she’d make sure I’d answer for it……

“That’s when I knew I’d really lost her, and that’s when I decided to come clean …you know the rest.”

(How could I forget? Lucifer thought to himself. I died that day…….) 

“And since we’re playing 20 questions, wanna clue me in on why you left when you did? You went crazy getting that antidote for her – you had us all doing some, uh, questionable things, but damn if you didn’t succeed. I figured you’d be with her after saving her life, you two seemed, well, you know……..”

Lucifer sighed. “It’s complicated, Dan……”

###

Lucifer had had to go to the precinct after all. They had found nothing on the security footage from outside the club, at least so far. They had pinpointed a day when all the victims had been there, Saturday, January 28th (just three days before Chloe’s poisoning and the very last day that Lux had been open for business).

But there were 10 hours of footage to go through and Lucifer was getting annoyed and very, very bored.

“I need a bit of a break, Daniel,” he said. “I’m going out for a smoke.”

But really he had decided to go look for Chloe, who had not appeared once in Dan’s office as they perused the tapes.

“OK, I’ll keep looking – unless my eyes fall out of my head….” Dan said as he resigned himself to continue scanning the video from that night.

The detective was not at her desk and not in the break room. Lucifer wandered absently down the stairs until he found himself outside the forensics lab. 

Then he saw her through the window of Ella’s office, the two women involved in what looked like a very intense conversation. 

Not wanting to just barge in, he watched them for a moment, then saw Ella’s arms go around the detective, with a reassuring (or empathetic) hand patting her back. Chloe hugged her back for a moment, then pulled away, so Lucifer took his opportunity to knock lightly before opening the door.

Ella gave Chloe a meaningful look and said “This is my cue to beat a hasty retreat,” and she acknowledged Lucifer’s quick nod.

When she was out of earshot, Chloe turned to face him, willing her cheeks not to burn or her eyes tear up and congratulated herself on being able to control herself. Almost.

Lucifer had dropped his usual flippant demeanor and spoke seriously. “I – uh, wanted to ask you – no tell you--” He seemed lost for words, then just blurted “I wanted to apologize for--”

“Leaving town? Hurting me? Lying?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her words.

“I have NEVER lied to you!” 

“Oh really? Do you remember the night we were on stake-out and I asked you what it felt like to be shot?” (Lucifer nodded.) “You told me that night that you would never hurt me, do you remember that?”

“Of course I remember--”

“Well, you LIED,” she spat, “you did hurt me! You left without a single word! It hurt worse than anything has ever hurt me….” Her voice faded to a near-whisper.

“It’s the way you did it……no explanation, like it was nothing, like I didn’t matter to you at all!” He wanted to shout that she was wrong, that she was all that mattered to him, but she wasn’t finished. 

“You HAD to know how I would feel….. but you didn’t care, did you? You made me feel ….worthless--” She looked down at her feet, praying that the burning behind her eyes would not turn to tears.

Then she asked quietly “Was it fun?”

“Fun? Wh—what are you talking about?”

“Fun, Lucifer. Did you enjoy it…….playing with the human, I mean? Was it fun for you?”

She was staring at him, eyes glittering but mouth set in a hard line.

“I – it – it’s complicated--”

“Riiiight. Yeah, ‘complicated’, I get it. Too complicated for the ‘simple mind’ of a ‘mere human’ to comprehend. Easier than telling the truth—“

Lucifer was dumbfounded, “I – I’m not sure what you are getting at--”

“BULLSHIT! You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she had her cop face on now, the one she wore when taking a hard line against a perp she wanted to crack.

“I asked you a question, and I would appreciate hearing the truth from you – again, did you have fun playing with the human? Me. ‘God’s Little Miracle’ I believe is what I’m being called……..Well?”

Lucifer’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, too many conflicting thoughts fighting for dominance in his head.

“So….you, um, know? May I ask how?”

“Your brother. Linda. Maze. Even your ‘mother’…….” she snorted (that bitch, she added to herself).

Lucifer thought his head would explode. “I don’t know what to say--”

“Well, you could start with why the Hell you never told me the truth!”

“I’ve ALWAYS told you who I am!”

“Oh, come ON! Don’t use that fucking excuse – you knew I didn’t believe you! You could have proved it at any time, yet you didn’t. You could have let me IN. I thought at least we’d come that far….. You told Linda, no, you SHOWED Linda, and she survived. 

“But you didn’t trust ME.”

“You were put here by my Father, you were put here deliberately for me to meet you! You are part of his game and I’m tired of being one of his bloody chess pieces!”

“Yeah, I get that. How do you think I feel? I never believed any of this shit anyway, yet you believe I’m some kind of weapon. As if I would hurt you or cooperate with anyone who tried to! Why didn’t you just tell me when you found out? Why?”

“I did come to see you, right after she told me!…….Don’t you remember what happened? I was yelling at you, but you were bleeding……..and it just sort of all spun out of control. I had to find you that antidote……”

“Why? So you could turn around and leave without a word? After you went to Hell for me? Without telling me? Without asking me where I stood in all of this? Just up and gone…….as though we wouldn’t ALL go crazy wondering what had happened to you. You have no idea what we all went through, do you? Trying for weeks to find you. Why did you do it? Was it deliberate? Please, Lucifer, at least tell me WHY….I just want to hear it from you.”

She stood there waiting and he was lost for a few moments, unable to process what she was saying and the emotions that were churning in him.

“It seemed like the best thing to do at the time, to remove myself….Does it really mean we can’t be friends anymore?” he finally asked softly.

“FRIENDS? Friends?” a bit of hysteria had crept into her voice. “Friends trust each other, Lucifer! That’s what makes them friends and not random strangers who could care less….Friends have each others’ backs. Friends step up when you need them. FRIENDS don’t treat people like meaningless nothings. Friends don’t run away when the going gets tough……

“How can I ever trust you again? Do you have ANY idea how much you hurt me?

She was staring at him and he squirmed under her icy gaze, but offered no answer.

“Well, you know what? I don’t think I can work with you any more. Partners need to trust each other…..I’m truly sorry about that, because I treasured it, what we had…….what we might have had…. it’s just too painful……” she paused for a moment.

“I’m really glad we never slept together. So thank you for that at least – or maybe I should thank ‘God’,” she said sarcastically.

“I guess what I’m saying is – is – I really don’t see much point continuing this, um, farce, whatever you want to call this sick game of yours…..you don’t trust me. I can’t trust you. Why don’t we just leave at that and call it a learning experience?”

No, no, no, no, no, no – don’t say that, please don’t say that.

But he said nothing.

“Here’s what it is. I don’t ever want to see your face again. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want you ever to show up at my place – if you have to see Maze, arrange to meet her somewhere else. I don’t want to know what happens to you. I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit. You think I’m a weapon your ‘Father’ is using to destroy you? Fine. I’m walking off the goddamned battlefield so you can stop worrying about how I’m conniving with fucking GOD to ruin your life. OK?

“You’re never going to hurt me again. You’ll never get the chance. And, by the way, you really are an asshole.”

With that, she stomped out of Ella’s office and stormed out of the precinct, at least her dignity intact, if not the heart that had shattered within her. She left Lucifer there, still smarting from the sting of her words (but more than a little proud of her stubborn strength and refusal to be manipulated).

It wasn’t until she got to the parking lot and began fishing for her keys, that the tears began to fall. After a few seemingly endless moments, she stood up straight, shook herself, got into her car and headed home.

Lucifer sat in Ella’s office tapping his fingers on the metal table, debating what he should do now. It seemed to him that there were only two choices left – come clean and try to make it right between them (if that was even possible now) or pack up again and head for the hills. 

Did he still want her? Oh yes, more than ever. 

Did he want a relationship with her? (They were so different, was it even worth a try?) Maybe. Yes. No.

It would certainly be easier to just leave again, and in many ways maybe the better choice for them both. 

Her words had felt as if she’d thrown acid on his soul. But the flow of feeling he got from her was not hatred. Anger, most certainly (and he surely could not blame her for that). Yet underneath it there was definitely something else, a terrible sadness that came off her in waves, that belied her words, and fascinated him still……

He sat there wondering if there was any way to win her back, to have her trust him again. To have more….He would have to think this one through very carefully.

But he was not sure if he even wanted to try. 

[End]

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I left it there, really intended this as a one-shot to express Chloe’s feelings about what happened, and you can make up your own mind if they get together or not. I have hope for our unfortunate couple (hope dies last, after all), but at this point I’m not sure which way the show will go. I will say it would be a real shame to waste a 26-episode build-up arc for them, and a bit of a cop-out (pun intended), but, hey, we still have time to dream up our own versions before the writers smack us in the heart again! 
> 
> [Song: “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye.]
> 
> Comments welcome!


End file.
